Category: India

Yeah. So a few Sundays ago, we stuffed ourselves with fried chicken, and when the breeze ran cold and the sun dipped low, went to watch this famous movie that got its ‘i’ dropped. You know which movie I’m talking about.

Now I’m not a very ardent cinemagoer to begin with. I’ve vague memories of my mother carrying me in her arms to this dreary cinema theatre in Banmankhi where they sold roasted peanuts during the interval. I also remember that they played the same stodgy crap over and over. The movie would be about a woman whose life was hell because her in-laws were children of satan and her own family was a cluster of eunuchs. The husband was a pisshead who fucked whores and had a debt equal to the combined GDP of Bangladesh and Myanmar, which he had acquired from shady people. Not to mention he was vile and violent and loved torturing his wife, which was considered an act of domestic violence before E.L. James came up with Fifty Shades of Grey. The mother-in-law had a PHD in finding faults and the father-in-law was an insignificant character who read newspaper and had no idea what he was doing in the movie. Also, there was unpaid dowry. So they’d beat her up pretty good. But the woman was a devotee of this Goddess, who for the most of the movie, perhaps enjoyed her plight munching popcorn in her higher dimensional sofa, who towards the end realised that the in-laws were pretty evil blokes and so she almost killed them but the good wife requested her to not to do so and then all those evil people somehow got magically transformed into gentle human beings in the last two minutes of the movie. I was a small baby back then, but I swear I knew I had landed up in the wrong place.

When I grew up, we didn’t go to movies that often. Mostly, it would be south Indian mass entertainment crap on Star Gold every sunday at 4 pm, full of ludicrous action sequences and incoherent songs. We did go to watch Veer in JVR Plaza, but it flopped terribly. I also went to watch Kambakht ishq with my mother, a disaster about which I shall talk later.

So anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t drop at multiplexes every Friday, and so when we waited at the fast food counter on the second floor of Vikas Mall cleaning our 3D glasses with the tissue paper, I felt kind of excited. There was a Black Panther poster on one of the walls, and my friends started posing in front of it. There were dozens of army officials, strolling around with big guns. The mall looked like a battle camp.

We went in after a while. And it was a cheap ticket, so we got front seats. They were showing Delhi Police ads against child sexual abuse. The movie started in a while and we put on our 3D glasses. It wasn’t that clear. We’d to really focus hard to see the movie. This intellectual friend of mine tried to explain the science behind it. But when he started using words like refraction, we told him to shut the fuck up.

The movie was good. It could have been better had there not been (1) Stupid people entering the theatre all the time because they were probably given wrong timing or had alzheimer (2) Stupid couple always having to buy some stuff during the movie because they couldn’t buy it later (3) Stupid baby kicking at the back of my chair because, well, wait, why the fuck is it legal to bring babies in a movie theatre (4) Stupid aunties in the back discussing if Malik Kafur was that.

The glasses sucked but I managed somehow. There were very few hot scenes. Khilji was impressive and cruel. I wouldn’t even talk about its historicity because it is pointless. The songs were nice. The plot was a bit stupid. The story sucked towards the end. It wasn’t a Bajirao Mastani. Deepika was pretty but Aditi Rao Haydari looked like someone you could build Taj Mahal for.

It was around midnight when a blinding light pierced through my eyelids. I squirmed and squinted and shielded my eyes with my palms, but I couldn’t stop seeing the light. I knew I was only conjuring it up, because my palms were perched like a crab upon my clenched eyes, but you know I have this condition that when I think something it just gets into my head. The beam of light broke through my skin, and my veins glowed like neon and my bones smoldered like coal, and the light kept seeping; it burned the tissues, it lit up the blood and it stabbed through the skin, searing each layer of me until it hit my pupils. It made me dizzy. What’s worse was that it wasn’t even real light.

Unable to find solace, I pried open my eyes. There was a white woman with a silver pony, arranging the middle berth on the opposite side. That’s all I could make out apart from her skin tone. I let my eyes dart around for a while. On the other side, I saw another girl. Black hair that sparkled in the light of a distant source, almond eyes that seemed lost in a distant memory – she seemed like a piece of art with deeper hidden meanings. She just sat there, unaware of my existence while I watched her from a shadowed bower that was lit up like a forest fire a few seconds ago. She was making me poetic. Oh my heavens! This compartment was choking full of hot women!

Only that there were slight issues which I discovered the next morning. The white woman actually turned out to be a guy. And the other girl went into hibernation once she got under her blanket. Hmm..so I was sharing a journey with a married woman, a zonked out woman who might as well have been dead, and a woman who was actually a guy with a silver pony – which is not exactly the kinds I picture my voyages with.

I checked the status of the train – it was 9 hours late. I stepped down and took up a seat on the lower berth, by the white guy. He had a rudraksh mala in his hand which struck me as weird. Then I studied him with the precision of a lab attendant. Saffron Kurta, white dhoti, a red tika on his forehead, malas around his neck – the only thing that was odd was his face, white as Sheamus. I wondered if he was an Indian guy with some skin disease. I didn’t ask him anything. I just observed.

“Iskon Temple. “He said as he showed me in his phone. The notifications dropped in a foreign language.

“Where are you from? “I quizzed.

“Russia. ”

“On vacation? ”

“I’m here to learn Bhaktashashtra. “He said.

Oh my…doesn’t Putin love you anymore? I didn’t even know there was a thing called Bhaktashashtra. They don’t offer it at DU, so anyway.

“How much time has it been…”I almost faltered.

“5 years. “He said as he smiled with great satisfaction, the one you get when your daughter finally gets married to a nice guy.

5 years? I mean is that even legal? 😑

Then he showed me his Bhagwad Geeta, and I began to realise he was completely brainwashed.

“You know about this? ”

Yeah. That’s what they made Amrish Puri pledge upon in a Bollywood courtroom. And it’s full of moral preachings and there are no hot scenes in its entirety.

“It’s a part of Mahabharata. “I said.

Then he started explaining stuffs and Krishna’s messages and I felt like a pagan.

“I guess I am an atheist. “I said. The married woman chuckled at my tragedy.

Then came the Russian guy’s girl, from the other compartment, and I froze, my eyes stuck on her like I was an esthete and she was a Michelangelo masterpiece. You remember the fairies they tell you about in pre-school? That was she. Dressed in a saree, with nose stud and all. I felt weak at my knees even though I was sitting. This is unfair, isn’t it? You can’t learn Bhaktashashtra for 5 years and have an ethereal wife at the same time. Such is life, my dear friends, such is life.

They stayed for a while and then the girl went back. The guy tried to show me some more videos of his Keertan but I said I was sleepy and so I climbed up to my berth and checked if the sleeping beauty had woken up but she had not, and so I slept, wondering why foreigners are so queer.

The train was late by two hours. Then, they announced that it’d arrive at platform number 4, which was on the other side of the world, somewhere around Peru. I was exhausted by the wait – rolling the trolley bag felt like hauling a dinosaur egg. I dragged it through the stairway – my palms tired and sweaty – overtaking slow, fat, redfaced aunties who had travelbags so large that you could suspect them of felony. When I landed my bag at the dilapidated floor of platform number 4 and heaved a sigh of relief, they announced that the train would – due to some technical issues – now arrive at platform number 3. So I hauled my luggage and tagged my soul along to platform number 3 where the train showed up after thirty minutes. Before that, I tried to update my phone using railway wifi, but it seemed Indian railways was still using pigeon services, and I did not want another pretext for my brain to go crazy, so I unplugged and decided to write a scathing article about the appalling fall in the standards of government bodies. But then I was too tired so I just watched a flock of birds fly away in the stratosphere above the high roof of platform number one and wondered why don’t they ever get tired. I also wondered if Icarus’ flight was worth it, if what he experienced in those tiny fractions of time would ever be felt by Daedalus, and if history has been unfair to him. Then, the train arrived and I crawled in.

Okay. Let’s establish the facts first. I had a hot copassenger. But her husband was a bit of an appendix. A wheatish poker face. And he wore a black sweater on a dark pink shirt which gave me sort of a headache. And what’s unfortunate is that they had a child. Picturing them having sex was kind of weird – like watching a cult porn or something. In small towns, you can have hot chics plus dowry if you earn well. I can, too. But what attracts me more is intelligence, which is a rare thing in both the genders. This intellectual friend of mine has even higher standards about which we shall talk later.

So, what kind of women do I like?

Well it’s tough. I can’t draw an eligibility chart. I’m in the last year of my teenage and I don’t exactly find Gwen Tennyson hot anymore. I like girls who play chess. But that’s not all.
I guess I liked Doctor. No, not someone like her or someone of the same name or appearance or intelligence or DNA coding or whatever. Just Doctor. It’s not easy to explain, didn’t I tell you.

In a relationship you look for compatibility, because love cannot haul you all along. So yeah, maybe compatibility is the word I’m looking for. But I’m not sure. It could be all about blowjobs for all I know.

Anyways, they looked kind of happy. I mean almost perfect. Compatibility. Blowjob. Or maybe both. I guess you establish that much when you’ve made a baby together. It’s a huge risk, and if it turns out ugly or dumb, you would most probably not relish wiping poop off its ass for years. But then, what do I know. I don’t exactly adore them.

The train trundled on the eternal tracks, and through the tinted glass I stared out; trees, throngs and time past me in a flurry of blurred paintings. I realised I am passing a moment and this was enough to make me sad.

Bhagalpur junction is just slightly bigger than Godzilla’s ass, but it has got two bookstores. There’s a restaurant as well, and not to mention free wifi, and random switch bords with enough holes to allow half a million people charge their phones simultaneously. The icing on the cake, though, are the girls – hot and plenty.

I roll my trolleybag to a bookstore, browse around for a while and then check my pockets. Everything – phone, wallet, key – is at its place. I feel a sense of relief that otherwise only comes with peeing after a long time.

Probably I should stop masturbating, a random thought brushes my mind.
I start thinking about my dick after that, and it takes a while. Brain is a shitty dirty place. I mean you think about your loved ones and then you think about penises, all through just one organ. That’s really absurd if you see it that way.

Since the train is still a few stations away, I take the liberty of scanning through the stacks of books. There are Paulo Coelhos perched over Chetan Bhagats, there are Tolkiens mixed with Preeti Shenoys, there are Dan Browns lying around with Amish Tripathis – this pacific disarray makes me wonder that the world could be at peace if humans were just the books they wrote.

“What does that cost? Omnibus? “I ask the shopkeeper as I point at the book. He isn’t much for books, if you ask me. Fat guy with eyebags, and he is using a Salman Rushdie as his tea coaster. It takes him about a minute to locate Omnibus. He checks the MRP and plonks the book at the countertop as if he were tossing a dustbag.

“200 bucks. ”

I flipped the book. 200 it is.

“Don’t you offer some discount? “I ask. I mean I love Jerome K Jerome but Amazon was offering the same at 175. And they give bookmarks for free.

“No. “He says. I turn around and start moving. An old trick I learnt on wikihow.

“10 rupees. “He calls.

Alright, it’s working. So maybe if I keep walking he’ll bring the price even lower. Good, you’re learning. Okay, if I have to draw a price-distance graph, at what point will the Omnibus reach the upper limit of my book expenditure fund?

Ummm, now would be a good time to check your phone. And wallet. And key.

I have reached the edge of the platform but the shopkeeper hasn’t called yet. Something is wrong. I could have carried on, but I don’t want to be found dead on tracks, so I move back, mortified, and start walking towards a fast food joint that promises delicious biryani.

On the bus, I was thinking what would remain of me when I’m dead. Not as in the physical me, but the overall me which is a synergy of all my physical and abstract components. I know how my bones will melt and leave fossils behind, I’ve read that bit in std. 8, but is that all that’d remain of me? I mean what about my experiences, my voice, my actions? What about the imprints I’ve left on the paths I‘ve paved?

Vsauce says that the photons you’re emitting now will continue to glow for eternity. I don’t want to outlive time, I just want to live till everybody who mattered is ashes and dust….

It was a long ride through the frozen air. The city was sleeping underneath a foggy shroud. Not a soul fluttered, not a leaf whispered. This behemoth universe was a lonely cemetery, where death came quiet, and spirits were scared to step into light. Through it rode this small violet intercity bus, trundling on Vikramshila Setu, a 4 kilometre long bridge over the holy Ganga, taking people towards an end.

We all are rushing towards one – a thought brushed my conscience. Some get it quick, some have to wait till their teeth rot and their existence reeks of obsolescence, and they’re better dead than alive. And then, I began wondering what if the bridge snaps and the bus falls down into this icy river below. It does. That’s death right there. It’s slow but it’s also quick. You’re dying, your cells are dying every second, time is killing you like cigarettes – slowly and painlessly. But you also die very quickly, when the last string snaps, when it’s time, when your body can’t bear it anymore, and you’re dead within seconds.

I pictured myself drowning, flailing my limbs and gasping for breath, my leg trapped in the bus, pulling me down with its weight. I felt my lungs fill with water, the pain unbearable. I felt the squeeze, the choking. I saw my color go blue, I felt my body go limp, I saw it swell and rot, right here, in the holy Ganga. Headlines would cover it for a day and then, I’ll slowly fade away, drowning deeper into the sea of oblivion. What would remain of me? A few specks in the fragile memories of theirs? And even those would keep getting smaller with time. I wondered if Doctor would remember me. I could see myself slowly slipping away from her live memory, lying forgotten somewhere amid the clutter in her big cerebral stowage. That’s the place where light doesn’t reach, where toys rust and where innocence corrodes. It was a scary thought, scarier than death itself.

I thought about leaving a message for her. Like that cool stuff they show in movies. I couldn’t bear leaving her without something. One last message, something she could listen to and remember me.

I gave it a thought. All the things I’d say to her if that’s all I could ever say and that’s all she could ever know. I won’t harass her with proposals for sure, and I won’t lament the tragedy we have shared so far. I would tell her small things I didn’t, like the time I was planning to gift her an empty nailpaint bottle because she liked them transparent, and the portraits of her stacked in my almirah, and about the time I missed her so much that I downloaded 3 apps to record her voice but she didn’t pick my calls so I went back to play store and gave each of them one and a half star. I’d tell her that we could have been together for the sake of humanity. I mean our kids could be, like, world chess champions. I would tell her that I wish she didn’t marry someone dumb. I would even suggest her an iq test for an eligible husband. I would tell her to marry a genius and have kids, I would tell her to write a book about herself and mention me in a tiny little corner. I would tell her to feel that cold December wind and remember me.

The bus jerked to a halt. A boy puked at the door. Within seconds, the air turned rancid. I nearly gagged.
Don’t think about puke, think about her. Think about the message.

I’d start with a cliché – In India, cricket is a religion. It’s the bond that binds a billion people. You’d know that better if you follow Indian media on the eve of a great ICC event. Or just tune into any IPL finale. It’s a huge thing, like, the first question they ask in UPSCE interview is this – Who is the first double centurian in ODIs on the planet?

It’s Belinda Clarke. She did this on December 16, 1997.

We have been playing a lot of cricket this holiday. A surprising change, however, has been in my status, which has miraculously shot up. I used to be the third man guy in my early days. On some lucky days, I’d be the umpire who also kept score. Umpiring, I tell you, is like this boring government job where there’s plenty of time to deviate and slip into a lovely trance. I’d imagine me and Doctor walking down a bridge or something, the sun lighting up the stray strands of her shoulder-length hair, her pearly smile lighting up my existence. And so, I’d often get the figures mixed. (The other reason was that there was so much Math involved in counting, it made me puke). They’d then send me back to being a third man, where again, I’d glance up at her balcony wondering if she’d be out there today. In doing so, I’d misfield a couple of times, and they’d rebuke me for that but not change my position. Well, after third man, there’s no lower point you can hit.

When the other team needed 40 runs in an over, they usually gave me the ball and say,

“We trust you. That’s why we are asking you to bowl in the most crucial over. ”

And then I came charging down like Shoaib Akhtar, jumping like Zaheer Khan and throwing like Majid Haq. And at the end of it, our team would win by 1 run and I’d be the unsung hero of the match.

This time, I’m the – wait for it – captain. Yes. I open the innings if I want to, I go bowling if I want to, generally I don’t, but anyway. Today, I got the innings fired up with back to back sixes in Mama’s overs. I am batting left-handed these days, and it’s coming off well. I might try it again. Hell, I might have discovered something legendary about myself.

I don’t think about Doctor though. Well, that’s the irony right there. When you mention you’re not thinking about somebody, you’re actually thinking about them. It’s so JohnGreen-ish.

Her balcony isn’t the same anymore. The ghost has faded away from those railings long ago. There was a time when it all came naturally, now I have to imagine her and place it there and at the end of it, it’s just artificial. It’s interesting how time erases life, part by part.

I don’t even know where she is. Do I care? I don’t even know that. Am I crazy?